So hello everybody. I am in Salem, South Carolina. As you can see, it's nice and warm year.

I am going to be giving an icon carving class this week. And for the beginning of this session,

there's an icon carving class and an icon painting class as well given by someone else.

I was asked to give the opening talk. And I decided to do it on the, let's say, radical solution

that making Christian and especially liturgical art offers to our culture. This is Jonathan Peugeot. Welcome to the symbolic world.

I was asked to give a definition of an icon.

And so an icon is a sacred image.

So the word icon is complicated because the word icon just means image.

And so it's not, it's a shorthand, right? When we use the word icon is complicated because the word icon just means image. And so it's not, it's a shorthand, right?

When we use the word icon, what we mean is sacred image.

So we don't say sacred, but that's what we're talking about.

So that's what makes the icon particular.

It's because it is an image which not only depicts sacred things, holy people, but also is sacred in the sense

that it participates in the life of the church. It participates in the life of the liturgy as well.

And so it is another word we could use is something like liturgical image. That's another way that we could talk about it.

And so because of what it is, because it is a sacred image, it has certain characteristics

which grew up in the church, in the tradition of the church, to help identify the images,

to help differentiate them from secular images,

and to help us understand what it is that's going on inside the image.

And so in terms of the actual canons, you could say,

in terms of what the church has decided,

it is required for something to be considered

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